Jim Bradshaw
Super Bowl Sunday, we are told, is the pinnacle of the football season, the day on which the Game to End all Debate is played. But a long time ago, in south Louisiana, the biggest game of the year was when Crowley High School clashed with the Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute. In its first days, when the school that would become UL-Lafayette was little more than a glorified high school, Crowley was one of its biggest rivals in all sports.
Edwin L. Stephens, first president of the school, saw sports competition as a way to bring students to the campus and to keep alumni involved in SLII affairs. In 1904, he was the prime mover in organizing an association that included high schools from Breaux Bridge, Crowley, Franklin, Lake Charles, Leesville, Marksville, New Iberia and St. Martinville (as well as SLII) for “the advancement and improvement of Amateur Athletics and the fostering of interest in Oratory among the schools of southwest Louisiana.”
A track meet in 1904 apparently was the first event sponsored by the new athletic and oratorical association, and Stephens reported three years later that “the spirit of track athletics … has been greatly developed. Many of the high schools … have developed teams that are equal or superior to the Institute team.”
That created several rivalries, not the least of which was the one between SLII and Crowley, which apparently was as intense as any you’ll see today. It got especially hot in 1910, when Crowley wanted to have the games moved from SLII, with the support of some other schools who saw Crowley as a more central location.
Stephens couldn’t argue that point, so he turned to his friend J.H.R. Parsons, Southern Pacific passenger agent in New Orleans, to set up special trains to and from Lake Charles, Morgan City, and Washington to bring the teams and their fans to Lafayette.
“We are determined to make this the greatest school stunt in Southwest Louisiana and we want to do it so well that nobody henceforth will question the necessity of anchoring the annual event at Lafayette,” Stephens wrote to the SP agent. A series of letters between the two men are in the UL archives, showing that the Southern Pacific agent took some convincing.
But Stephens was nothing if not persuasive, and finally got his way. When the principals met to set the date and place for the next meet, Stephens wrote, “I had some trouble convincing some of the men that Lafayette is the place for it rather than Crowley. And the final argument … was my assurance that we could beat any other place (because) we can have special trains to take the crowd home Saturday night in all three directions.”
Adding to the heat, there was a question of “ringers” from Crowley. An SLII alumnus first wrote to Stephens before the 1910 event that one of Crowley’s track entrants, a young man named Morris, was not actually a student, but “was working in a rice warehouse the greater part of the fall in Eunice … and my impression is that they are trying to enter him in the contest unjustly. We understand that he is a very fast short distance runner.”
Later, questions were raised about a Miss McDonald, who Stephens said had professional training, making her ineligible for the oratorical competition, and about a Mr. Buckley, who’s age was “in doubt.”
Stephens went through the records and found that Buckley had won the pole vault in 1906 and 1907, listed both years as a 17-year-old, and who still seemed not to have aged. He was disqualified.
I find no report of Miss McDonald’s fate, but Morris ran in the meet and won the 100-yard dash, 220-yard dash, and 440-yard run. A note on the scorecard said that he was allowed to run “under protest” and that a committee would investigate his eligibility.
There’s nothing in the archives to say how the investigation came out, and some indication that it simply dragged on until it was forgotten.
Or maybe not forgotten, A printed card in the archives entitled “Yells of the SLII Rooters Club” to be used at Institute football games, shows that the rivalry continued at least for another few years.
Cheer No. 3 is: “Ice Cream, Soda Water, Ginger Ale, Pop! Lafayette Institute Always at the Top!”
Cheer No. 4 is not so positive: “Crowley, Crowley, Pumpkin and Squash! Hayseed! Hayseed! Yes — By Gosh!”
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, Cajuns and Other Characters, is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.